The iconic snapshot shows presidential nominee Robert Kennedy sprawled out moments after being hit with gunshots, and Juan Romero using his hand to hoist Kennedy’s head off the cold floor, trying to give him a sense of comfort in what would become some of his final moments.

“All the people around him are adults,” Romero’s friend and long-time journalist Rogo Chacon said. “But the boy in the scenario is the one who rushed to be of some kind of help.”

Years after Kennedy’s assassination, Chacon became a close friend of Romero’s. He first found Romero to tell his story.

“I think he realized that he had become a part of a moment that was iconic in history,” Chacon said. “Time and Life magazines both reported that that picture was one of the top five in the century.”